Staffing Agency Fees

Staffing agency fees include base pay, taxes, benefits and overhead.

Using data from March 2016, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the average US employee earned earned $23.25 per hour. Employee benefits cost employers $10.70 per hour for a total of $33.94 per hour.

Staffing agencies usually quote their fees as a multiplier of the employee’s base pay. The BLS data demonstrates that the first 1.46 of staffing agency fees covers wages, taxes and benefits ($33.94/$23.25 = 1.4597).

Agencies typically charge between 1.65 and 2.10 times the employee’s base salary. The rate will reflect the demand of the skill set needed, difficulty of the search and number of available candidates. The fees above 1.46 contribute to the viability of the agency. The fees also cover the agency’s overhead costs (phones, computers, rent, filing taxes, salaries) needed to provide value to the customer.

The value an agency like MEIRxRS provides includes finding the right temp or temp-hire employee. As the survey from our partner recruiters in Top Echelon demonstrates, agencies uncover the best candidates through their network of referrals, internal databases, and cold calling with just a small fraction coming from ads or social media.